


The Sweater

by frogo



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hannibal exists in wills mind palace even though he doesn’t technically have any dialogue, Its the red sweater, M/M, Wally us pretty ooc bc i made him super immature and also 8, Will is not ok, Will misses hannibal ;(, cannibal longing hours, introspective musings, its hannibals sweater, molly notices but doesn’t rlly notice, the sweater, will is sad, you should know this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogo/pseuds/frogo
Summary: Whenever he sees His monster in his peripheries or memories plague him incessantly, Will wears The Sweater.Tonight was one of those nights.
Relationships: Molly Graham/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 34





	The Sweater

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: grammar 
> 
> Hi y’all! 
> 
> Wow two fics in one day I am on a ROLL!
> 
> Just a heads up, most of the i(/words/)are Hannibal talking in wills subconscious/mind palace. Although not all of them are! You’re smart people you can figure out context.
> 
> I have no beta, and i proofread this once, and and all mistakes are my own
> 
> Enjoy!  
> ❤️

On nights like these, where not even whiskey or dogs would distract Will from cloying memories, and he he kept glancing red eyes and wendigos in his peripheral vision, He’d wear The Sweater. 

It was already worn and well loved, so he saved it and meticulously cared for it with a gentleness most wouldn’t associate with Will Graham; suspected serial killer and casualty of the Hannibal Lecter investigation. 

It was relic of a past life, a comfort, an addiction to indulge in on nights like these.

It hadn’t started as a bad night, much like the others before it, but then again, if he had any control over the outcome of nights like these, he wasn’t sure he’d change their course. If only to catch a glimpse of his monster in the shadows, lurking in his periphery, he would be satiated for a time. He could stave off the aching longing he felt for his other half in order to gain the courage to fully sever himself from him. For the good of his family.

His family. 

The word conjured up images of a young girl, brunette with blue eyes and wind chafed skin-quickly replaced with his photographic memory of the day Molly dragged him to get their picture taken as a family when Wally was only 8. He was forced into a scratchy Christmas sweater and he had to put on a brave face to show Wally it wasn’t that bad, and he could endure it for five more minutes. It was the first time he subconsciously put an effort into being a good paternal figure for Wally. 

He wore the sweater that night for the first time, when he realized.

On this night however, his monster seemed to pop up wherever he looked. 

It had started as an ordinary evening, he finally finished their neighbor, Claude Becker’s, boat motor and sat down to watch the sunset from their porch. Right as he get settled, he heard the tell tale rumble of Molly’s truck rolling up the driveway.

She’d picked up Wally from school, he knew, and had taken a detour on the way home to buy supplies for the anniversary surprise she’d been planning for past week. She thought he might be falling out of love her, because he seemed distracted, often staring into the middle distance, and he doesn’t crave sexual intimacy with her as her last husband and past boyfriends had. He’d have to find something meaningful to give her, something he could wrestle a poignant and sweet meaning out of. 

Wally rushed up the porch steps and threw his arms around the dogs, laughing the whole way. He greeted Will with a quick ‘Hi Dad!’ before he rushed into the house to put his things away and play with the dogs inside where it was warmer. 

Molly put her arms around him and gave him a longer kiss than usual, no doubt feeling sentimental after her shopping. He found himself uncomfortable with her attentions, and restless with the knowledge that he shouldn’t be uncomfortable, since she was his wife.

It’s not that’s he didn’t love her. He did, very much. He just didn’t have enough energy left in him today to reciprocate her passion. Molly was a smart woman, and she picked up on the fact that Will seemed too tired for foreplay or any kind of sexual interaction tonight. She rested their foreheads together, and stared at his face intently.

‘I was gonna make a new recipe I found online tonight, how’s that sound Mr. Graham?’ She said quietly.

Will smiled, ‘Well as long as you don’t poison me, I think that sounds great’.

She snorted and lightly slapped his shoulder, before heading in. She paused at the doorway though, and turned back to ask ‘Are you gonna stay out long? Or should I leave the door open?’

He waited a moment before responding ‘I think I’ll stay a little while longer, just to see the sunset’.

She smiled in that soft way of hers. 

‘Okay’

And with that she left him to his thoughts and the chill of the wind.

It was here that the night established itself as a ‘bad one’. 

Will had been sitting outside for a few minutes when he saw the shadows in the forest line shift and move. He recognized the movements of an animal, too large to be a rabbit or a fox, but not big enough to be a bear. It was odd enough that something would come this close to the clearing his house was on, but suddenly out of the brush emerged a tall, regal looking elk. It slowly paced forward, sniffing the ground lightly dusted with snow before it snapped its head up and swiveled towards the source of sudden movement.

It was looking at him. He hadn’t even realized he stood up until it made eye contact with him and froze as well. They stared at each other while the sun set and for longer after. In the dark it looked more like the ravensstag of his dreams/nightmares/hallucinations. Was this a hallucination? Had his encephalitis relapsed? He was back in Baltimore, back in therapy, back with the FBI, back in love with him, back and back and back to confessions to kisses to passionate and chaste embraces to love, blinding, all consuming, god awful-

‘Oh my god it’s a deer! Wally get out here’

No. He wasn’t in Baltimore, he wasn’t in Wolf Trap, Virginia. It was sometime in the evening, he was in Philadelphia with his wife and step son. He needed to forget him.

‘Will? Are you alright?’

Will blinked and the Ravenstag was gone. His eyes still trained on the forest, he turned his head to answer her.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright. Sorry’

She laughs.

‘Oh no it’s fine. I won’t tell anyone Will Graham was scared of a lil’ ol’ Elk. I have my reputation to think of.’

‘Dad you’re not afraid of Elks are you?’

Will tears his eyes away from the forest line to look at them. He registered their words for the first time, and let the slight sting of Molly’s jab sink in before responding.

‘No, I was just surprised to see one. Especially out in the clearing.’

‘Oh’ Wally said. Will could tell he was placated at the fact that his step father wasn’t scared of some deer and could still scare away the monsters under his bed. He could scare away Wally’s monsters, but not his own. He didn’t have the heart to.

Molly didn’t seem to notice his shift in attitude and corralled them inside for dinner, Will finally noticed how cold he was and made his way inside without looking behind him once more for a glimpse of his monster.

Molly was a good cook.

The traitorous little voice in his head that sounded too European, too cultured, always reminds him that she didn’t compare to-.

Molly was a /good cook/.

She wasn’t entirely finished though, so Wally and Will set the table together, while Will tried to entertain Wally by finding more and more convoluted ways to get him to look down at his chest so he could flick his nose. Each try making him laugh harder and louder until Will swooped down and picked him up under his armpits and set him on his hip - all the while complaining and groaning about how big Wally was getting, and how he’d soon be too big to carry. Which wasn’t entirely false, Wally was getting pretty heavy, almost 9 now, and Will wasn’t exactly in his prime anymore. Still, he felt paternal and some lingering discomfort from seeing the stag was chased away by Wallys happy screeches and dogs barking in concern and excitement at this new game their master was playing.

Molly’s little kitchen T.V. brought Will back from his reprieve, however. Usually she played evening talk shows or home renovation channels for background noise, but tonight was something different. She had a live broadcast going, of a classical symphony in the city. He went still. The arms supporting Wally relaxed and fell to his sides. His eyes trained on the middle distance, unseeing. 

The fireplace crackled. Wine glasses clinked together and soft laughter as well as whispered adorations and secrets could be heard. Soft blankets and softer lips. Smiles.

Dimly, Will registered a tugging on his arm, insistent. He heard someone calling him Dad. 

‘Abigail?’

Was Abigail here? No that’s not right, she was....She was in the kitchen making supper. He was holding a gun. That’s not right either. She was in the kitchen and he was, Will was-  
bleeding. Will was bleeding and she was dying. 

She was dying....

(Will?)

She was dead. He had wept on the cold linoleum floor, his diaphragm almost spilled out onto the tile along with his organs as his whole body was wracked with the force of his sobs. His monster looked down on him like a benevolent god.

(Will. WILL-)

/This was your fault. You could have prevented this. A place was made for you. 

For us./

‘Will!’ Molly was shaking him. Molly. His eyes snapped back to the room and his mind struggled to find its way back to reality for the second time that night. God he needed a drink in him if he was going to make it through tonight.

‘Yeah, sorry, I don’t know what happened.  
I think I’m just tired’ 

/liar./

Will told that cultured European voice inside of himself to go fuck itself and tried to ground himself in reality. Forced himself to feel Molly’s tight grip on his shoulder and insistent hand at his forehead, checking if he had a fever. He focused on the dogs barking and whining, sensing the distress of their owners, and on the near painful tugs Wally gave his sleeve. 

Philadelphia, he was in Philadelphia.

Molly looked at him with worry evident in her posture and her face. She looked hesitant, as though she wanted to ask him something, but didn’t trust him not to shut down again or worse if she did. She made up her mind. ‘Alright, you really had us worried there. Don’t do that again y’hear?’

Will forced a smile for her sake, but he still felt unmoored. Disturbed and drifting in the wake of his memories, he bent down to Wallys level and apologized softly while ruffling his hair. Wally smiled, easily placated and without a care in the world ran over to the kitchen T.V. and turned it so that it faced the table, turning it to the Drag racing channel while making car noises.

Molly laughed and playfully scolded him, ‘Hey! No cars at the dinner table Wally, you know the rule’ She looked to Will for help, But Wally had her beat, already giving Will major puppy eyes and whining about ‘But mom! They’re not cars, They’re RACE cars!’

Will laughed and shook his head, silently thanking the kid for changing the channel when he did. He acquiesced saying gently ‘Just turn the volume down and don’t make too many car noises, okay?’

Wally screeched in triumph and ran around the dining table making race car noises at the top of his lungs with a pack of dogs at his heels. Molly fondly rolled her eyes and asked ‘Who’s side are you on Mr. Graham?’ He smiled and sat down to eat, hoping to enjoy the rest of his evening.

How foolish of him.

Even looking at his plate, he could see beautiful plating, transposed upon Molly’s haphazardly placed dish. Hear artful descriptions of chicken soup, steak and potatoes, hell, even alfredo had to have a zing to it. The place settings were at once plain and cheap, but also delicate and modern. Gone was the stained tablecloth and mismatched paper napkins, replaced by a spanning mahogany table and soft, cloth napkins. 

And so the night dragged on.

Dinner finished, dishes washed, Wally playing with his cars that Molly was trying to wean him off of. Will felt like an outsider, an invalid. He sat next to his wife, her feet in his lap, glass of whiskey in hand, a step son by his feet. By all means he should be content in this domesticity. Yet he stares into the crackling fireplace, filled with memories and regret over past lives. He sits. He stares. He can sense his monster in the room with him. He closes his eyes and venters into the old hallways, into the first rooms he keeps tightly locked. His monster is in there with him. He is closer now.

/Come closer now, Good Will/

He’s running now. Down the corridor, past the red door, left at Leda and the Swan, right through the library, past the garden and he bursts through the rotten wooden door at the end of a dark, dank, corridor into-

/Oh, my dear Will. 

How I have missed you./

Hannibal. 

His monster.

He snaps awake. Panting, sweating, eyes roaming the room looking for the wendigo, the ravenstag, Hannibal. But he is alone. Molly left him to doze by the dwindling fire and tucked Wally into bed. 

He pours himself a nightcap. Or two.

He briefly debated whether or not he should drink the night away or sleep in the guest bedroom. It was a school night, and he didn’t feel like doing the walk of shame in front of Wally eating breakfast. Guest room it was. 

Trudging up the stairs, he made his way past the master bedroom and into the guest bathroom to get ready for bed and wash the taste of evening nap from his mouth and try to wash the despair from his features. 

After freshening up, he goes to check the box in the guest closet for The Sweater, but when he opens it, it’s empty. 

Cold, cloying dread and despair fill him quickly in equal measures, and he tears through the closet to find it. His breath comes in quick short bursts, gasping and choking. He can’t find it he can’t find it he can’t-

Having emptied all the contents of the closet onto the floor he sorts through them again and again before scrambling up and bursting into the hall and through the master bedroom to see if-

Molly. 

Molly is wearing The Sweater. His sweater. 

Turning at the sound of the door practically ripped from its hinges she startles and smiles at him in that soft way of hers. ‘Oh! God you scared me Will. What d’you think? It’s such a nice red I thought-‘

‘Take it off.’

She looks up, startled from admiring the way it drapes over her figure and finally sees the expression on Will’s face, Or rather, lacktherof. Will knows exactly how he looks, dead behind the eyes, frozen in place. He’s seen it enough times in his memories of the night that He left Will bleeding on the floor. 

‘Will? What’s wrong? I don’t-‘

‘Take. It off.’

She turns her body fully to him and slowly takes off the sweater. He can’t even look at her. He can’t wear the sweater tonight. It would still smell like her and he wouldn’t be able to press the sleeves to his nose and pretend he can still catch a whiff of His cologne that would survive the many washes it’s been subject to. 

‘Will? I-‘ She sighs, and her eyes go glassy before they harden, she’s made a decision that The Sweater encouraged. 

‘Will, who is Abigail? Are you seeing someone else?’

Hearing her name wrings a broken sound out of his chest, unbidden. He shuts his eyes, feels tears brimming and his breathing quickens again, coming in pants unrelated to his frantic running from minutes earlier. He sniffs, tries to control his breathing, hears that cultured European voice instructing him in breathing techniques and whispering sweet praise and comforts into his ear.

‘She....she was my-‘

He can’t say it.

Molly slaps him. 

‘If you’re cheating on me I want to know! Say it to my face, look me in the eyes Will. Lately you keep wandering off and I can see it in your eyes that you’re not here but this? Is this her sweater? Will I thought-‘

‘She was my Daughter’

The admission is ripped from his chest, it sounds weak, sad, pitiful. He wants to crawl into silk sheets with thread counts higher than his mortgage and into strong arms and lay his weary head against a strong chest.

It is 10:56 PM. He is in Philadelphia. His wife thinks he is cheating on her. 

Her face crumbles like wet sand before him. Regret clouds her features, and she reaches for him ‘Oh Will I’m so sorry, I-‘.

He shakes his head, and inhales sharply against his tears, working through the ball in his throat, he manages to get out ‘It’s fine, I-, I think I need to be alone for a while. I’ll sleep in the guest room.’

She wants to hold him and smother him in apologies and have make up sex. He can tell, and the very prospect of it all makes him sick, because he knows he would do anything to please her in this moment if only to hurt himself and to assure her that he wouldn’t cheat on her. Which was exactly why he left as quickly as he could, clutching The Sweater tightly. Only letting up when he closed the guest door behind him and realizing what he was doing, letting out a sob of despair, sure that he stretched or ripped it. Slowly, he sinks to the floor, his back resting on the door. 

He stays there, back against the door, resting on a hard, cold floor and when he openes his eyes, through the blur of his tears he can see a benevolent god staring down at him in equal parts betrayal and forgivingness. If this were to be his penance for loving him, so wholly and thoroughly while still leaving him, then his god (his monster) was truly righteous and wrathful in nature, and Will resigns himself to his purgatory. 

His monster leans down, and cradles his face so tenderly. Will furiously blinks through his tears to get just a glimpse of him. His wendigo, his god, his monster, touches their foreheads together.

Will leans into his touch, and says what he’s been meaning to say every day since their last goodbye. 

‘I’m sorry’

Epilogue

It was four months after the incident. While Molly had mostly forgotten it, every time she caught a glimpse of Will looking at nothing with a haunted look on his face, she gets a rush of guilt and forces herself to look so that she’ll remember exactly how much she hurt him, before she shakes him out of his daze and tries her best to distract him with anecdotes of Wallys antics throughout the day and stories about how the dogs manage to find their way into trouble. 

She thinks he’s getting better. But that he just needs something to distract himself, something to make him feel purpose that being the town handyman just doesn’t provide.

So when Agent Crawford (Call me Jack, Mrs. Graham) comes calling, she’s wary at first, but when she gets a glimpse of the pictures she makes up her mind to encourage her husband to get back out there, because she knows that he won’t be truly here with her unless he does this. And if she’s being honest with herself, she hates looking at him only to find he’s staring at the space over her shoulder, and it was getting to be so emotionally exhausting to see that (And she was really running out of good anecdotes as Wally started 4th grade and thought himself a worldly sage).

That same night, she went downstairs to check on Will before she turned in, and saw him standing in front of the fireplace. At first she didn’t think much of it, and was about to call him to bed,when she caught a look at his face and paused. There was a solid set to his brows and a solemn, somber expression on his face that she’d never seen before, and she closed her mouth. He was reading something, a letter of some sort, and though she couldn’t make out the words there was a slight shake to his hand before he carefully folded it back up again, and then opened it and read it again. 

She was perplexed and desperately tried to glimpse the letter’s content, but before she could see past swirling intricate calligraphy, he threw it into the fire. Shocked, she resolved to ask him later, if he came to bed in the master bedroom. 

He didn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> The Molly Epilogue was pure impulse, but did anyone catch the Oceans 8 reference? Also, yes, I did de-age Wally bc i needed some adorable fluff
> 
> How was it?  
> lmk in the comments and leave a kudos if you enjoyed!
> 
> Have a great day ❤️


End file.
